My kid blew up the kitchen.

It’s a tale as old as time. Or rather, a tale as old as Samuel who just so happens to be five years, five months and sixteen days old at the time of this writing. On that fateful day five years ago, an unstoppable force came into this world wrapped in a neat little package of unnecessary trauma and destruction. As my first C-section, he scared us all half to death by having tied a knot in his umbilical chord and exhibiting distress as he tried valiantly to come into the world. Thanks to a panicky, raging, psychotic on-call doctor, (it’s a long story. I’ll spare you. You’re welcome) we all thought Samuel was going to die en utero, but true to form… after all of the drama out comes a healthy, chubby, pink Samuel, demonstrating his unimpaired lung capacity for all the world to hear.

And his entrance would soon prove to be the universe’s attempt at foreshadowing as we watched that pink, chubby newborn grow into a vivacious, bright, happy, sweet, gorgeous tornado, who’s love and enthusiasm for creation and experimentation frequently lead him down an unintentional path of utter destruction.  Paired with his lack of coordination and excess spasticity (thank you, cerebral palsy) this impulsive desire to experience life to the fullest routinely wreaks havoc in our home. Never was this reality more apparent than it was last Tuesday at 7:00pm.

When our oven exploded.

We needed a few staple items at the store and so had promised the boys pizza for dinner when we’d finished the shopping. They’re never more pleased with my meal preparation than they are when we have frozen pizza. Which is super flattering commentary on my typical meticulous weekly meal-planning and homemade dinners, let me just tell you. *cue mom eye-roll* So the boys were excited and we’d just gotten home with our load of groceries. The kitchen hadn’t been touched yet that day because of reasons and so it was a disaster. The dishwasher was open and air-drying, the counters were cluttered, the pantry was open which meant the baby had pulled all the cereal off of the shelves (this is important later, hang in there). It was a wreck.

I turned the oven on to preheat (if you just let out an audible gasp and thought ‘don’t do it, Alicia-From-The-Past!’ I’m right there with ya, friend) and busied myself with putting groceries away, tending to a fussy baby who’d been awakened during his nap that day and needed to be fed quickly and put to bed, and tidying up what I could as quickly as I could. As I was straightening the counter, I noticed our thank you gift for the mailman hadn’t been tied in a ribbon and hung on the mailbox, so I walked down the hallway to get the necessary supplies when it happened: a crashing, shattering, explosive noise emanated from the kitchen, followed immediately by terrified crying from three of four children who had all been in the kitchen, waiting (im)patiently for dinner.

I ran down the hallway and rounded the corner to the kitchen and viewed the scene with growing horror. Shards of glass covered every inch of the kitchen. The floor was a sea of broken glass, pieces of varied debris, and burnt plastic. The oven was smoking and a thin layer of smoke and glass-dust thickened the air. Shem was pouring over a sobbing Samuel, checking him for physical damage. Peter and Sam were covered from head to toe in glass shards and dust and everyone was in shock.

“Do we need an ambulance?” I shouted over the sounds of distraught babies.

“No,” Shem replied, “we don’t need an ambulance. No one is cut.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding, “What happened??”

“I have no idea!” Shem walked over to the oven, which had been turned off already and opened the remaining bits of door. And there it was: an aerosol can of apple and cinnamon air freshener. Also a melted monster hat. Shem threw them both on the ground in disgust and fury. To my husband’s eternal credit, he got ahold of himself almost immediately. An impressive feat that I wouldn’t have managed as quickly if I’d been that angry. But in the moment, my only emotion was relief and gratitude that no one had been hurt. My anger would manifest itself later that evening, an hour and a half into our two-hour clean up of the disaster.

Samuel, who was having glass shards picked out of his hair by me at the moment, had started to shrink into himself in abject horror as the weight of realization was sinking in. He’d caused it. He’d put that can in the oven earlier while mama had been taking a shower (side note: new moms sometimes ask me how you take a shower after you have kids. So here’s your official answer: you don’t. Shower and your house will explode. Consider yourself warned). His burden grew as the seconds passed. He knew he was inches away from being the main event at our family’s next yard-sale. His little life was flashing before his eyes. He’d just blown. up. the. house. That’s a pretty heavy burden for a five-year-old to bear.

“Samuel, did you put that in the oven?”

The moment had come. He put his head down and his shoulders up, hoping to absorb his head into his chest and maybe disappear forever. He nodded. We paused.

“Thank you for being so honest. That was probably really scary to tell us.”

He nodded.

“What just happened, Samuel?”

“I put that can in the oven and it exploded.”

Shem and I launched into a pretty heavy-handed lecture about cause and effect and about using things the way they were meant to be used and how when you don’t use things properly they explode and how lucky we were to all be alive and how that could have literally sent someone to the hospital and how mistakes are important so “what did you learn?”

“Not to put cans into the oven”

I mean. It’s a start.

We started the clean-up process: kids in the bath, glass shaken out of shirts and pants and removed from grocery bags and open dishwashers and cereal boxes (remember when I said that open pantry would be important later? Congratulations, you’ve arrived) and started the pizzas in the oven downstairs in my sister’s house (thank goodness for sharing a house with your sister, amiright?). And Shem and I mused about the things that made that event an actual miracle (children were all facing away from the oven at the time of the explosion which saved their faces and eyes from direct impact, safety glass that had been used by visionary oven designers, a miraculous and highly unusual seating position of Thomas which tucked him in a corner, out of the direct line of the explosion, the list goes on and on.) unquestionably, our family had been protected. But that wasn’t the biggest miracle of the night.

After I’d bathed Samuel and done my best to fish out as much glass as I could find in his long strands of blonde hair, I was helping he and Peter into pajamas when Shem came into the room and let out a sigh, “Samuel. We love you so much. Even when you make mistakes.”

My throat got tight and my eyes prickled a little as I gave Samuel a big hug and said, “Yeah we do. Even when you blow the house up, we still love you” we laughed and Samuel jumped up and gave his daddy a big, bouncy hug, “I love you, daddy” and then gave me a million kisses and I saw the burden of having caused that explosion lifted from his shoulders immediately as he realized we’d forgiven him and still loved him. And that we loved him even though he’d caused such a dangerous, scary event. And that we loved him even though he isn’t perfect and isn’t always careful and isn’t always thoughtful.

We bought a new oven the next day; a used one we found on KSL (but still…merry Christmas, Samuel, Santa brought you an oven*) and look how much better:

As Shem installed it that night and we swept up the last of the glass shards, it occurred to me that now our kitchen looked almost exactly like it did before. We even found a new oven that looked similar to the old one. Glass shards are all but gone, the smell of burning apples and cinnamon has dissipated, and our counters have been dusted and scrubbed free of any glass-dust residue. A guest in our house would never know that we’d detonated a homemade bomb in our kitchen two days previously. It has been wiped clean.

The only thing that remains is everything we learned. I check the oven before I preheat it now. Samuel doesn’t put cans in the oven (or anything else ever ever ever) and Shem and I grew in our capacity to love and forgive and restore as the Savior would.

Heavenly Father knew we’d mess up while living this life. He knew we’d make mistakes, give into temptation, indulge in the natural man, blow up kitchens, etc. And so He sent His Son to clean up our messes; to offer His forgiveness; to take upon Himself every, single one of our mistakes and leave nothing as evidence for them except the lessons learned. He gives us infinite chances to learn and grow without suffering any long-lasting repercussions of the shattered remains of our lack of careful thought. He cleans and repairs and restores and above all, He loves.

He loves us even when we hurt someone or say something we don’t mean or yell at our kids or cheat on our taxes. He wants to forgive, He wants to extend that gift of love freely and without thought of reward. He wants it for us. Because He loves us. Even though we aren’t perfect and aren’t always careful and aren’t always thoughtful.

He loves us even when we blow up ovens.

*Also other presents because Santa is really nice*